When I ping any local windows hostname from my Ubuntu machine I get "unable to resolve host", but when I ping from a windows machine it works fine. Why would this be? Samba & Miredo are installed
6 Answers
To ping a netbios name in Ubuntu you need to add wins
to /etc/nsswitch.conf
. Run:
gksu gedit /etc/nsswitch.conf
And add wins
to the line:
hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
So it looks like this:
hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns wins mdns4
Save the file, close the text editor, and ping away.
If that does not work, open /etc/samba/smb.conf
, and uncomment the "name resolve order" line:
name resolve order = wins lmhosts bcast
after that, restart nmbd smbd winbindd
.
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4I added wins but that didn't change anything. However, I noticed that if I add ".local" after some names it works (with or without the wins setting)... Do you know what's going on there?– DavidFeb 24, 2011 at 5:38
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plus in addition to nejode's answer (thanks nejode) I would also check your smb.conf I have added mine to my answer for comparison.– AllanFeb 24, 2011 at 13:27
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what you need to verify in the smb.conf is that your workgroup is the same as the one in the windows station Apr 27, 2012 at 17:35
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3
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@David: That's using the Avahi system to resolve your names, which the
mdns4
directives specify. That's a different system than Samba, so if you want Samba to work, you have to keep testing without the.local
domain.– palswimApr 1, 2016 at 19:37
You may have to install the package libnss-winbind to be able to find windows computers by hostname. Simply installing winbind may not work. See answer.
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Beautiful, worked for me on Ubuntu 14.04. Installing winbind by itself didn't work. Apr 23, 2014 at 16:22
Had the same problem, Ubuntu 14.04 trying to access PC with Windows 8. In addition to above recommendation I had to install libnss-winbind
sudo apt-get install libnss-winbind
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I'm running 18.04 and have been trying to solves this problem for almost a whole day. This was the (last) thing I was missing. Many thanks! Jan 15, 2020 at 14:47
If you have edited your /etc/nsswitch.conf
file and installed winbind
already (libnss-winbind
or samba-winbind
) and still have problems, you may need to disable your NSCD (Name Service Cache Daemon).
@Spivot +1
sudo apt-get install winbind libnss-winbind
sudo vi /etc/nsswitch.conf
edit:
hosts: files dns wins myhostname
sudo vi /etc/samba/smb.conf
edit:
[global]
wins server = x.x.x.x
name resolve order = host
Reboot for best results, or just:
sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart